Episode 167 - An Attempt to Be More Human on the Internet

this is exactly what you think it is, maybe.

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Hello. This is totally unscripted. This is, like in one of those documentaries where it's like a handicap and they're just, like, walking through their house being like, okay, when are we going to film that's? Like, what this is? It's like, okay, when are we going to start the podcast? I don't know.

Maybe you should talk a little bit about how long you've been running the podcast.

Bagel farts. That's what this podcast will be about. Actually, I was watching a TikTok the other day. I sound like I'm, like, 80 years old. I was watching the TikTok. I was watching a TikTok the other day, and it was like one of those videos from antiques, Rojo or whatever where they appraised different things. And this guy, he had to be like, I don't know, maybe 75 or something. He had these giant thick glasses and he looked like super adorable. And he had this giant blanket. And I was like, well, what is this? How long have you had it? And he's like, I don't know. I just think it's a Navajo. And he's like, I've had it for over 40 years. And he finds out the appraisers, wringing his hands with excitement. He almost looks like Smithers. And he's like, Ted, I got to tell you, this blanket, in the condition it's in, it's worth anywhere from $300 to $500,000, from $300 to half a million dollars. And dead space is just like, what? And then, like, I hooked in the comments. First comment. First comment in TikTok. Ted's been farting on that blanket for 40 years.

You know what this reminds me of? This was inspired by Bo Burnham's Netflix special. That's what it is, because it's somehow not related to each other yet. It's all related. It just kind of starts and then it just kind of is and you're just still listening. But then when you go back, you're like, this somehow feels cohesive. I still don't think we know how to be authentic on the Internet or, like, ourselves. There's this aspect of humanness that we don't know how to convey online, because if you think about it, shit is still so new. This is so new. We think that because the Internet has been around since, like, the late 80s, early 90s, whatever you want to preface it with. We think that it's been around forever, but it hasn't. It's still so new. It's so new. Are you ever worried about what people are going to think of you online? Like, if you're weird because you do some weird things, you've said some weird things, like you do weird impressions. Are you worried about that at all? Hey, everybody, it's Ted from the Navajo story about the blanket. I don't think people realize how goofy of a person I am.

Like, I feel like people are going to listen to this and be like, oh, is she, like, high or drunk? Recording this? The answer is no. This is how I am on a regular basis around my family and my friends and my husband. My husband will get home from work, and I think, I don't know, most people would probably give their husband a kiss and be like, how you doing? I will come up to the door like a Gremlin making weird noises. And I'll say stuff like, I'm going to get you. And he's like, no, that's what he comes home to every day. When I was actually in kindergarten, I think, was when it first started to come out. I always wanted to be really goofy, but I felt like, I don't know, I couldn't. So I remember my mom tells me this story because I don't remember it exactly. But there was a time when I came home from school and my mom, the teachers told my mom that I was, like, really quiet in the classroom, but they had, like, a puppet theater with little hand puppets and you could sit behind it and then obviously nobody could see you except for the puppet.

And they'd say, like, as soon as Sarah gets behind that puppet stand, she does these funny and hilarious voices, and everyone in the class laughs, and she has such a fun time. I wish she could do that. I wish she could be more of herself just on a day to day basis. And I think I still feel that way. I think maybe that's why I love podcasting, because I still feel like I'm kind of behind something. Like I still feel like I'm not completely out there, completely vulnerable.

I don't know.

There's something about it that's really lovely.

Is there something you want people to get out of this episode that are listening? Is there any kind of message you want to share or, like, a feeling that you want to convey?

I think I just want more people to know that we just need more humanness on the Internet. I think we think we have it, but I don't think we're there yet. I don't think we're there yet. I know this because as soon as I put a camera in front of my face or start talking on Instagram stories or even go live, it's like I'm a nuanced version of myself. I'm still me. I'm still real. I'm still authentic, but I'm trying to be authentic. Does that make sense? So it's like I'm almost not, like, even thinking about how I'm talking now versus how I talk on my podcast. Right? I'm trying to convey something. So because of that, I'm just a different version of myself. It's not this, like, raw version of myself. I think that we missed that online. And I think it's because, like, there's all these ways that we mask right? There's, like, professionalism and all these things, and they make sense. I'm not saying we do away with those, but I just think that there's some kind of veil that if we could take it down online and really see more of ourselves.

I think that's what TikTok is doing right now. Honestly, a lot of these talking head videos, people are just having conversations about how they feel. We're literally breaking down into tears, talking about their experiences, and people are actually relating to other people. And I think that's fucking amazing. If you're jamming with this jelly, come on down. If you've got a bowl of Froot Loops and you want to put some milk in it, there's definitely a huge part of me. And as soon as I started saying this, I can feel myself getting kind of emotional. But I think there's definitely still a big part of me that feels like a lack of belonging somewhere, and that's like a narrative, as if there is some place to belong. Maybe we all feel that to some extent. There's a lot of different elements to my life that I feel are, like, so abundantly, incredibly amazing. But there's always kind of this undercurrent of I still don't always know who or where the rest of my people are. When I was, oh, gosh, maybe two or three, I was at a local beach with my parents. My mom was sitting on the beach and I followed my dad out.

My dad was walking into the water, and I don't think he knew I was behind him or I don't think he knew that I was going to follow him the way I did. Because what happened was we were walking out into the beach, and then he walked out a little bit farther and there was like a quick drop off. And I kept walking. And I just remember all of a sudden falling and breathing in, like, all the salt water. Like, I can still taste it, just like all the salt water. And I remember my eyes opened really bright and I just remember seeing underneath the water. And it was like, just for such a brief second. And then all of a sudden I felt like my dad grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the water. And immediately I was, like, choking and coughing and crying, and my dad was making sure I was okay. And what was so interesting about that experience was that I remember my dad was also, like, yelling because parents get scared and then sometimes they yell. And he was trying to point out to me later I realized he was trying to point out to me that I could have stood up.

So, like, what happened was I felt like the land moved is lower, and I fell because it dipped down. But then I still could have stood up. Like, I didn't have to drown, but I was just so shocked that I fell. And in retrospect, thinking about that moment, I just think it's really interesting. Just the parallel the mindset of that, right? Like, obviously I was 23. I wouldn't have thought of standing up. But I just think about in my life now how there still have been so many moments. I think we all experienced this where we slip and we fall and we think we might be drowning, and we just feel paralyzed in that experience when we forget that we have feet beneath us and legs beneath us to stand up and we don't have to drown. And I always just think about that moment and how glad I was that my dad was there, obviously. But how I didn't even know that that was something that was available to me. I didn't even know that I had the power to help myself.

Daisy, I haven't got on the Term. Mrs. Pat More.

You're obsessed with that show.

I seriously think that one of the hardest things this is from my perspective, okay? Like, not talking about literally everything else that's hard in life. But one of the hardest things, I think, mindset wise. If we were in a little Orb of protection and we could just think about. We could just have the privilege to just think about this. I think one of the hardest things is giving yourself permission to know what you really want and then just going after it. When I think about the life I really want eventually, and we've got a handful of years left until my husband is retired from the military. And then we'll have a little bit more choice, like, where we live and what we do and stuff. And one of my biggest goals is to live, like, out on the land somewhere, like, have a piece of land and maybe build, like, our own Aframe and adopt a bunch of elderly dogs and somehow find a way to fund all of that and maybe raise chickens and maybe have enough land for cows. Those are the kinds of things I think about. And I think about the things I love doing are just little local things.

Like, we move so much that I just can't wait until we can really root down somewhere and I can find that community. I think that's, like, one thing. I just don't know what that feels like because I've moved so much, and I don't want to say I don't know what that feels like. I do know what that feels like, but not in the ways maybe that I think about it in my head, you know, coming back to, like, that feeling of belonging. God's, so fucking dark. Not the plan of this. But anyway, I think about how fun it would be to be able to root down and do that. And then I also think about all the things I love doing, and sometimes I feel like they're so boring. I hear all these people talking about how they want to travel and see the world and do all these ambitious things, and I do too, but I also just want to knit out in the countryside and go to more libraries. And I've seriously considered joining the Lighthouse Society and being a part of that literally. Last year during Gordon, I looked it up. I was like, how can I be a member of this Lighthouse society?

And your dues go to preserving Lighthouse stuff? And I looked it up, and it's literally just like old white men. And I was like, okay, I mean, I'm okay if I get to meet Ted, if I ever got to meet dad, I think that's the first question I would ask him. Did you fart on your Canva blankets? I think what's so funny about this is I've literally been laughing about this TikTok comment for like, three days. I'll just say it out loud. My husband was in the bathroom and I just walked past the door outside. I was like, Spartan on his planet and just started laughing. And then I heard him start laughing. No, but lighthouses. I really love lighthouses. I want to learn more about them. And I also have been getting into bird watching and listening to birds and identifying them. And sometimes I make jokes all the time that I'm a grumpy old man in a 30 something woman's body. But sometimes I really seriously wonder because who instilled all these interests in me?

I'm like, I just really love to spend some time birdwatching, like, bird watching and a Lighthouse. Oh, my golly. Gee.

People are super uncomfortable with grief and weirdness and tears, and I happen to experience those and show those outwardly quite a bit in my personal life. And so I think it's really interesting that, like, after I lost my dad, for example, how and I think anyone who's experienced loss and is around people that haven't knows this feeling of you become this walking mirror for people where they're completely scared of what you're going through because they never want to have to go through themselves. And I don't even think that self awareness is necessarily there. But it's like people don't know how to hold space for grief. So I think after I lost my dad, I didn't hold space for my grief. I just completely went into working out all the time, trying to be funny, trying to make all my friends laugh. And that didn't last very long. That wasn't sustainable. And then that led to me getting into a really dark, deep depression later in life. At, like, six years after the loss of my dad, at 29, I was, like, in the deepest depression of my life. I couldn't get out of bed for, like, six months.

Basically the only reason I did was because of Bella, my Bulldog. And I've talked about this on the podcast, too. But I just think it's really interesting that I think maybe even that comes this is interesting. I think that mirrors the Internet and how we show up online, because it's like if we Canva experience people in our own lives holding space for all of us and the complexity of all of us. Or if we only feel like we Canva show up as ourselves in certain ways at certain times, then that creates a whole other level of complexity online, because then it's almost like a subset of that to another degree. If I already feel like I have to be a certain way in my real life, then that's only going to be magnified times ten when I'm showing up or having conversations with people on the Internet. I just don't really care anymore about trying to. I don't have the desire anymore to try to even make the effort for people to even assume that I'm cool or even assume that I'm any one thing. I had this thought the other day. I think there's a lot of my identity that's still wrapped up in my business because it's something that I've really clung to since getting married and then having to move all the time because of the military.

I think there's a lot of it that I've grabbed onto and found all these online communities and stuff like that. Because this is such a big tangent. It's really unwarranted but lovely at the same time when you don't have roots in the ways that a lot of society does, because you really start to find out who you are while you also start to really get confused about who you are. It's like, who am I in? I'm reading this book right now, actually called how to Do Nothing by Jen. I cannot remember her last name. And she talks about her dad in the beginning of the book and how once he left corporate America and started working for himself, he thought of himself differently, like not in relation to the world, but he just saw himself more, not compared to this or compared to that, but he just understood himself. And I think I kind of know what he meant because I feel like this loose particle that has, oh, gosh, here comes my lack of science knowledge, like lack of ions or part of something. The nucleus is the powerhouse of the cell. No, that's not it.

Fuck.

Do you want to set it that out? Even though it's mitochondria?

This was an episode. There was about absolutely nothing. But maybe you feel a little less weird because now you have me to compare yourself to. And as we all know, I'm really fucking weird.

Maybe just end it with, like, a rapid fire.

Three tips that people can take or something like three. You usually give people practical tips about productivity. Maybe just wrap it up and do something like that.

Welcome to three tips that Q Tips. Tips for life, the three tips that you can take to start the end, to finish up the end of this.

Okay, three tips. Tip number one, laugh more. Let yourself laugh more. That's the tip. Let yourself laugh more. If you have an opportunity to laugh and obviously not at somebody else's expense. Sometimes there's things that are funny that you shouldn't laugh at and that makes them more funny shit. But anyway, if you have an opportunity to laugh, do it. Don't hold back. If you think something's funny, laugh. There was a time, I don't know if I've told this story. There was a time in College, it was like one of the first classes, literally one of the first classes I was taking like day one, and I was in this giant classroom, this giant lecture hall. There's like 300 people, and I was up in the back like way up high, and the professor was making dad jokes, and I thought they were really funny. And at one point he told this joke. I wish I remember what the joke was. And there was like a brief pause after he said it, and I literally was like super loud and nobody else laughed. But he turned around and started laughing and he pointed me. I'm glad you thought that was funny.

And I didn't regret it because I thought it was funny and I laughed. If there's a joke and you think it's funny, laugh. Laughing always is great. I think we don't let ourselves do it enough. Number two, follow advice that you want to follow until it doesn't make sense for you to follow it anymore. I think we get caught up, especially if you're a business owner in taking someone else's advice or strategy or whatever, and maybe it works for you and it feels good, but then at some point it doesn't, because there are those in between gaps where you need to pivot or shift or do something differently or listen to yourself about what feels good for you. It's important that you listen to yourself. It's important that you take advice that makes sense for you and implement it. And then once it no longer serves, you, stop doing so. Tip number three, don't tell anyone. Don't tell anyone about this podcast episode. It's so weird and it makes no sense. And I'm just going to leave it here in the middle of my podcast because either people or this is going to be like the first episode they hear and it's going to make no sense, which is kind of delightful.

Or people that have been listening to this podcast since the beginning of 2018 are going to hear this and be like, what in the what? And I'm just going to leave it here. So now you can tell whoever you want about it. But I thought it would just be fun to do something creative and show more of myself. And I guess if this podcast episode has a theme, it's not farts. It's not blanket farts. It's that we all have to find ways to bring ourselves joy and show up authentically as ourselves. And I think it's going to take a while for us to figure out what that looks like. But it's all just a big experiment. And I think it's worth playing in that experiment. So. Yeah.

Thanks for listening.